It's The Economy, Stupid (Or, It's Stupid's Economy)

I suppose the good news after last night's whiney rant is that the lunatic in the White House hadn't decided to invade Venezuela (yet). But even if you somehow believe that Trump is an effective leader, what specifically, did last night's rage fest accomplish?

I think you know the answer to that: not a thing. 

It's a characteristic of our political climate that the electorate will blame any bad news on whoever happens to be occupying the Oval Office. During the last half of President Biden's term there were two major things that reflected badly on him and his administration. 

1. Immigration: there was a record number of people entering the country at the Southern border. Not all of them were coming in illegally, but the immigration system was being overwhelmed and the not-unreasonable assumption was that things were out of control. 
2. The economy: inflation had risen to near-record levels in 2022, and although the inflation rate had dropped to close to normal levels by 2024, the higher prices it had engendered hadn't gone away.

Trump capitalized on these two weaknesses. I'll save immigration for another day, but Biden did himself no favors by trying to convince the voters that their perceptions about the state of the economy were wrong. As far as the big picture went, he had a point. Average wages had risen as prices went up. The higher prices were never going to go back down—and we don't realistically want them to. Deflation can be just as bad as inflation. Wholesale reduction in prices means that profit margins go down—and when that happens the first thing that business owners do to compensate is reduce staffing—people lose their jobs. Then we have unemployment rising. But most people don't think about the big picture, they look at their own situation. For some, they haven't benefitted from the average increase in wages, so their paycheck doesn't go as far. For most, there is a perception of what a reasonable price for something should be, and even if their wages went up to help them afford the higher prices, they still think the old price is the right price. 

The economic situation, real and perceived, gave many voters the cover they needed to ignore all the many things that made Trump an unsuitable president. After all, wasn't the economy humming along nicely when he was president?

Yes and no. Most economic indicators were positive during Trump's first term. Unemployment was low, the stock market was rising, job creation was robust, inflation was within normal, low levels. Of course, all of this was simply a continuation of the trend that started during the Obama administration. But it made for an effective campaign point: Biden > high inflation/bad economy; Trump > no inflation/good economy. Simplistic, but effective...as long as you didn't have the slightest understanding of economics. Because if you did understand economics you'd realize that the inflation of 2022 was mostly due to the supply chain disruptions that started in 2020 (who was president in 2020?) and Econ 101 supply and demand when the world mostly opened up in 2021. It was unavoidable. 

By 2024 things were starting to settle down. Prices were never going to go back down, but neither were wages. Even minimum wages were up in most states. Inflation was slowly dropping. Trump could have coasted, doing nothing and subsequently taking credit as the economy righted itself. He could have still campaigned on what a mess that Biden had made of the economy, and comparing Biden's economy to his first term. Instead he implausibly promised to end inflation and to roll back prices on "day one". He could have pointed out that "fixing the economy" would be a year-long project and set a goal of returning inflation to a normal level, increasing job creation, and keeping unemployment low, to be accomplished at the one year mark. He could have sat back and done nothing, other than perhaps his tax credits for tips and overtime, and taken the credit as the economy adjusted. 

But not only did he make unattainable promises, but he took action to make the situation worse. There is no question that his tariff actions (I can't bring myself to call it a policy) exacerbated the problems, keeping inflation higher than it would have otherwise been due to the tariffs being paid by consumers. What makes it worse is that there's no logical reason for most of the tariffs (See my blog on tariffs from April). While normally inflation rises and falls without any contributing action by the president, in this case, it's inarguable that this president directly caused the economic mess that we're currently in. 

But, as usual with Trump, it's never his fault. He blames his predecessor. He throws money at the problem (or says he will). He whines about the unfairness of it all. He invents statistics that are often mathematically impossible. That's what you get when you elect an ignorant, incompetent, moron.

And, unless he dies first, we're stuck with him for another three years